The Audit Found My Rent Inside A Column Marked Gifts

I did not send another $21,250.

I sent Nella the bank confirmations again, this time with the monthly receipts attached. Farhad had emailed the first ten himself. After his death, the trust's bookkeeper had sent the rest.

Each receipt used the same words: Rent Received, Suite B.

Nella answered Shirin's claim with seventeen numbered pages. I paid April's $1,250 on schedule and saved that receipt too.

"A label she typed later doesn't change what you paid for," Nella told me. "Still, we will prove each payment."

Gwendolyn asked the court to require a full accounting of Shirin's management. She also asked that unusual payments need both trustees' approval while the records were checked.

That request took longer than the lock order. Papers went back and forth. I learned how much waiting could fit inside the word urgent.

For three weeks, I worked in the shop and ate dinner alone at home. Kamran stayed with a fellow teacher after I told him I needed space.

He brought clean towels once. Another time, he left soup by the door.

I thanked him for the soup. I did not thank him for being neutral.

"I was trying to keep peace," he said on the phone.

"Whose room was supposed to pay for it?"

He stayed quiet long enough that I heard a school bell in his background.

The court ordered the accounting. Gwendolyn hired an outside accountant, Ruth Ames, and obtained the bank records. The temporary spending rules allowed normal building bills but required joint approval for other withdrawals.

Shirin could still sign her name. She could no longer spend alone on anything she chose.

Ruth asked for the ledger in its original file form. She also asked for invoices, deposit slips, agreements, and all versions of the room schedule.

"Why versions?" I asked Gwendolyn.

"Because the packet Shirin gave Mr. Voss had no Schedule B."

"Maybe it fell out."

"That is something to check."

She said it without hope or doubt.

I liked that about her more each week.

Leon had hired his own lawyer. He found temporary space in Loves Park, but he had to pay $1,100 to change his move and $300 for another electrical inspection.

He sent copies of both bills.

"I don't want your kiln," he told me. "I want my money and a room someone can actually rent me."

"I know."

He asked how the glass work was going.

I almost cried at that small, normal question.

In early April, Ruth brought her report to Gwendolyn's office. I attended the portion that concerned my lease and the competing agreement. Nella sat beside me.

My $21,250 had reached the trust account in seventeen full payments. The bank records and receipts matched. Only Shirin's private worksheet called them gifts.

"So where is Leon's deposit?" I asked.

Ruth turned a page.

Three days after receiving his $9,600, Shirin had paid $6,800 to a banquet hall. The remaining $2,800 went toward a photographer and car service.

I recognized the date on the invoices.

Her birthday dinner.

Ruth asked me for the invitation, rather than taking my word for it. I found the email on my phone. It said Shirin's Fifty-Eighth Birthday, followed by the same date and hall name.

"Send it to your lawyer," she said. "She can provide a copy for the report."

Gwendolyn read the trust's expense rules with her finger below each line. Private parties were not building costs. No payment to Shirin had been approved as a beneficiary distribution either.

"She could spend her own money on a party," Gwendolyn said. "These records say she spent money she was holding for someone else."

Kamran and I had gone. I had brought her a glass pendant made with clear and green rods because she said bright colors looked cheap.

"The expense descriptions said trust outreach," Ruth said. "The vendor records described a private birthday event."

Gwendolyn asked two questions about possible refunds. Ruth had already checked. The services had been provided; no refunds remained.

"The trust can repay Mr. Voss from reserves," Gwendolyn said. "That does not settle who must restore those reserves."

She did not raise her voice. She placed a red tab beside $9,600.

Ruth had found something else: a February certificate Shirin signed for Leon. It stated that Suite B had no existing lease and no protected occupant.

Attached was a checklist. Next to Occupancy Schedule, Shirin had written None.

"Farhad kept delivery receipts for his trust papers," Gwendolyn said. "I'm requesting that file as well."

That evening, Kamran came to the apartment with a single sheet in his hand.

"Mom asked me to sign this," he said.

I read the first line.

I, Kamran Mehr, confirm that Dorsa Kazemi occupied the workshop only by family permission and never paid rent.

At the bottom, his name waited above an empty signature line.